The electronic library manager's guide to using central computer facilities

Many library and information people already use their organisation's mainframe for the provision of library services. More often than not the services will, in fact, be a computerised version of the basic library routines such as circulation, serials control, ordering, cataloguing and so on. The system might be a home‐grown one or it might be one of the many turn‐key integrated library systems available for mainframes. However, with thought, ingenuity and cooperation and some assistance from the Computer Department, the mainframe can be used to provide a whole host of other peripheral library services to staff throughout large organisations. In any such large organisation, especially of a scientific and technical R&D type, there will usually be a significant number of staff who have terminals connected to the main‐frame — for programming, running their own statistical software, CAD/CAE applications, in‐house database access, preparing documents, number‐crunching or whatever — and because they use their terminals daily they become a captive audience which you can reach far more easily, quickly and conveniently than you can with a flier or announcement list that gets distributed in the internal mail and then sits on their desks amidst a pile of other paper for days or longer.